


the grave that holds you

by tokyonightskies



Series: WidowReaper Week [5]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Attraction, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hugs, Identity Issues, Mentioned oral sex, Nudity, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 23:32:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10752057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokyonightskies/pseuds/tokyonightskies
Summary: “Overwatch found him, Widow. Under the rubble. They found him and they took him and they broke him… into me. They branded him a traitor,” Reaper mutters lowly, watching how the shape of his hand disintegrates into a shroud of shadowy particles. “But I was the one who ran. And I’m the one who’s going to destroy them for what they did to Gabriel Reyes.”They’re quiet in the relative darkness of the dusty room. Wisps of shadows orbit around the stub of his wrist in circles, constantly on the verge of completely dissipating, thinning out and thickening again.“You and I…” Widowmaker begins slowly, raising her chin to cross gazes with him again. “Are not so different, n’est-ce pas?” He moves and the light from outside, warm and golden, splays a line over the side of her face. She continues, “We are the tombs of people who don’t want to exist anymore.





	the grave that holds you

**Author's Note:**

> WidowReaper Week Day 5. What’s In A Name?
> 
> the past, or how the past possibly influences the present.

“It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account, we shall be more attached to one another.”

― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

.

He props his shoulder against the grimy windowpane, staring at the cityscape outside. Dorado looks beautiful in the evening, when the houses light up along the hillside and the vibrant colors of the outside walls soften in the darkness. He hears Widowmaker shift on the mattress and absentmindedly touches his thumb to his mouth, still slick from eating her out, still tasting her on his tongue.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Reaper looks to the marketplace, with its fountain and its strings of multicolored lights and its empty stalls and caravans; a frown edges a burrow between his brows when he thinks back to the conversation he had with Sombra at the crack of dawn. _No_ , it isn’t the conversation that has something thick and sour stuck in his throat, like curdled milk, not even the expression on Sombra’s face that betrayed her satisfaction at knowing things she’s _not_ supposed to. He swallows reflexively.

_Gabe_. Ages since someone last called him that, or it feels that way at least. _You don’t mind if I call you ‘Gabe’, do you?_

There’s a soft _skrrrt_ sound that draws his attention away from the window. Widowmaker sits upright against the headboard of the rickety bed, lighting a cigarette; the zippo’s flame highlights her face and parts of her throat, giving her skin color a greenish gleam.

She’d been there too, during the conversation, sitting stock-still in a corner, cleaning her sniper rifle meticulously, on autopilot. Her shadow split and caught shivering on the walls as the harsh lighting pressed down atop her bowed body. Reaper would never tire watching her, every inch the predator he was, from the concentrated expression on her face before she lined up a shot to the fluid grace of her body in flight, the cord of her grappling hook a natural extension of her arm. But her gaze was a tangible weight on his shoulders when he’d snipped at Sombra to _stick to the mission_ , one eyebrow arched in question. _C’est quoi, ce truc?_

“Gabriel,” Reaper says aloud, chasing out the silence with his unnatural, gravelly voice. “Gabriel Reyes.”

Widowmaker raises an eyebrow, smoke curling around the corners of her mouth and the button of her nose as she prompts, “ _Quoi?_ ”

“The name of the person _who became_ _me_ ,” he explains, digging the small of his back into the windowsill, blocking the view outside with his broad shoulders. “You deserve to know.”

She props her elbow on the headboard, turns her head to take another puff of the cigarette clenched between two slender fingers. Her sharp profile is mellowed out by the lack of light, eyes heavy-lidded, the tip of the cigarette lit up when she inhales deeply. Blows a thin wisp of smoke towards the ceiling in exhale. He drags the tip of his tongue between the seal of his mouth when she tilts her head and shifts, showing off her breasts, her flat tummy, her pussy and long, _long_ legs.

“ _Gabriel_ ,” she mocks the English pronunciation, putting some effort in hiding her accent and mimicking the way he said the name, and looks off to the nightstand. “ _Pft_ , Americans…”

Her gaze gleams golden in the dark, like a pair of cat-eyes, directed straight at him when she says, “ _En France, ça se prononce comme Ga-bri-el_.” Reaper feels something thrum within his chest when she chops up the name to emphasize how she says the syllables.

“I know,” he says, thudding the back of his head against the window glass. Closes his eyes for a fraction of a second, amends, “ _He knows._ ”

Widowmaker moves to the edge of the bed, stands up and walks over to him, her hair like a curtain call around her shoulders, reaching down to the back of her knees, spreading small flakes of ash in her wake from the cigarette. Everything smells like smoke to him.

“Who was he?” She asks, putting the filter of the cigarette between his lips, her fingers pressed against his mouth in a peace sign. “ _Dites-moi_ , who was Gabriel Reyes really?” He substitutes the taste of her pussy for tobacco. “I know Overwatch’ history like the back of my hand, _mon chèri_. I read the files. I saw the holodisks.”

When she takes the cigarette away, he breathes out in wisps of gray and black smoke. Inside him, Gabriel stirs, as if the man’s trying to claw his way out of the treacly murk of Reaper’s chest, but can’t, trapped, fingers sunken into the shadows.

“What you’ve read…” Reaper pauses to watch her finish the cigarette and throw the butt to the ground, the tip bursting into sparks on the floorboards. He holds up his open hand and counts a finger down for every statement he makes. “Army vet, super soldier, _passed over_ in the chain of command, stuck doing the _wetworks_ , dead—” He lowers his hand and sighs. “Partial truths.”

She narrows her eyes when he clenches his hand into an angry fist; the sharp ridges of his knuckles transmuting into wisps of shadow.

“Overwatch _found_ him, Widow. Under the rubble. They found him and they took him and they broke him… into me. They _branded_ him a traitor,” Reaper mutters lowly, watching how the shape of his hand disintegrates into a shroud of shadowy particles. “But _I_ was the one who ran. And _I_ ’m the one who’s going to destroy them for what they did to Gabriel Reyes.”

They’re quiet in the relative darkness of the dusty room. Wisps of shadows orbit around the stub of his wrist in circles, constantly on the verge of completely dissipating, thinning out and thickening again.

“You and I…” Widowmaker begins slowly, raising her chin to cross gazes with him again. “Are not so different, _n’est-ce pas?_ ” He moves and the light from outside, warm and golden, splays a line over the side of her face. She continues, “We are the _tombs_ of people who don’t want to exist anymore.”

Gabriel stirs in the hollow behind his sternum at the words, and Reaper thinks he sees Amélie Lacroix for the first time, behind the forget-me-not blue of her skin, in the bone structure of her face. There’s truth in her words, but Reaper doesn’t consider himself a grave, _no_ , he’s a funeral pyre and he’s still _burning._ She turns towards the nightstand, the color of her hair warmer and more natural in the glow of the streetlights outside.

“Smoke a cigarette with me,” Widowmaker demands simply, glancing at him over her slender shoulder.

The cold sharpness of her gaze would suggest she’s entirely in control and any glimpse of Amélie he thought he might’ve seen was just a trick of the mind, but there’s something vulnerable about her posture that betrays another person underneath. Reaper solidifies his hand and reaches for her, touches her cool skin and brushes the long strands of hair away from her shoulder blade. Her breathing’s shaky; her glare harsh; but Reaper knows Gabriel’s trying to connect with Amélie through this one comforting touch, reach for her through the bars of the cage that’s Widowmaker.

“I’m so tired, _Gabriel_ ,” she murmurs in a dead woman’s voice, done away with the stoicism Reaper’s accustomed to.

She shakes her head and furrows her brows, pinches the bridge of her nose, and while he’s half-expecting her to whisper _je suis desolée,_ she surprises him by saying, “I’ve come to learn that some people should just _stay_ dead.”

Reaper chuckles at her words – _thinking back at Morrison, at Ana, at the man whom he’s a manifestation of_ – slides his fingertips down her ribs, down her flank, presses his palm to the curve of her hip and takes a step closer, pushes himself flush against her back, props his chin on the bridge of her shoulder. She sags against him, leans her full weight against his broad chest. 

“Are you gonna light a fucking cigarette or not, Widow?” He asks gruffly, brushing his chapped lips against the hinge of her jaw. “We can shotgun it if you want to.”

Widowmaker – and he _knows_ it’s her – scoffs when he folds both of his hands on her abdomen in a half-assed attempt at an embrace, but doesn’t turn away from his dry-cracked mouth, nor from the scratch of his beard.

.


End file.
